Not applicable.
The present invention relates to improvements in or relating to cling film, and in particular to the dispensing of cling film for domestic and catering use.
Cling film has been available for domestic use for many years, and is widely used for wrapping foodstuffs before the foodstuffs are placed in a refrigerator or packed in a lunch box. An important and useful property of cling film is that it adheres both to itself and to other non adherent surfaces without the addition of an adhesive. This property allows a user to wrap cling film around an object (for instance some food on a plate) and to form without difficulty an airtight seal there around. In order to be useful for wrapping or covering arbitrarily shaped objects, cling film is necessarily dimensionally unstable, and the gentlest of forces is sufficient to cause a length of cling film to collapse on itself. Typically, cling film is manufactured from polyethylene or polyvinyl chloride. The resultant film has a thickness in the order of 6 to 16 xcexcm.
A length of cling film is provided wound around a spool to form a roll, which is typically provided in an elongate cardboard box. In use, cling film is required in the form of a sheet. In order to obtain such a sheet, the free end of the roll is grasped and pulled, causing the film to unroll from the roll. Once the desired length of film has been unrolled, this length is severed from the remainder of the roll as a delicate sheet, often by means of a cutting edge provided integrally with the cardboard box.
However, this mode of use of cling film presents difficulties. A user must learn the process of extracting sheets from the roll and, as will be discussed below, this process can be far from straightforward.
Cling film is transparent, to allow a user to identify an object that is wrapped therein without the need to unwrap the object. However, this transparency can make it difficult to locate the free end of the roll, and time can be wasted searching for the free end.
A further difficulty arises from the elastic nature of cling film. Since the cling film stretches as a length is unrolled from the roll, the user has to compensate for this stretching (and the subsequent contraction) and attempt to judge how much cling film needs to be unrolled from the roll to produce the desired length of cling film after the cutting of this length from the main roll.
A fair amount of dexterity is required to stretch a length of film over the cutting edge provided on the box and pull the length in such a way as to sever it from the main roll. This act requires the user to hold the free end of the cling film in one hand and the box in the other, and it is a common occurrence for the elastic nature of the cling film to cause the severed length to wrap itself around the user""s hand as it springs away from the box. Cling film is also self-adherent in that it readily attaches to itself, and the process of extracting a length from the main roll can cause regions of the cling film to adhere to other regions of the cling film. This situation is difficult to remedy, and often the severed length of cling film must be discarded and a new length obtained from the main roll.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and device for dispensing cling film that seeks to alleviate some or all of the above difficulties.
Accordingly, one aspect of the present invention provides a wrapping product comprising a laminate of a layer of cling film and a layer of spacing material, the cling film and the spacing material being substantially non adherent to one another.
Preferably, the cling film is polyethylene or polyvinyl chloride.
Conveniently, the spacing material is a paper or plastic material.
Advantageously, the paper material is single-ply tissue paper.
Preferably, means are provided to removably attach the layer of cling film to the layer of spacing material.
Conveniently, the layer of cling film is removably attached to the layer of spacing material by a weak adhesive between the layer of cling film and the layer of spacing material.
Alternatively, the layer of cling film is removably attached to the layer of spacing material by one or more spot-welds or glue sports.
Preferably, the layer of spacing material is wider than the layer of cling film.
Another aspect of the present invention provides a sheet of a cling product as described above.
Conveniently, the layer of spacing material is longer then the layer of cling film.
Another aspect of the present invention provides a block comprising a plurality of sheets of a cling product stacked together.
Advantageously, the block is contained in a package.
Preferably, the package is a flexible package.
Alternatively, the package is a rigid package.
Another aspect of the present invention provides a roll comprising a length of wrapping product wound around a spool.
Conveniently, the length of wrapping product is provided with a plurality of lines of perforations at predetermined locations there along.
Advantageously, the roll is contained in a package.
Preferably, the package comprises an elongate box.
Conveniently, the elongate box is provided with a cutting edge.